


Everthere

by corbaccio



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Developing Relationship, Emotional Baggage, M/M, Magical Elements, Medieval Fantasy, Mild Smut, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:02:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25576255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corbaccio/pseuds/corbaccio
Summary: “I don’t suppose you need help getting there?” Armin said. His gaze fixed on Jean again, watching for a reaction. His eyes were a stark cornflower blue. “I was actually planning on making the trip myself.”Really?Jean wanted to say. The journey between regions wasn’t the safest, and Armin—a good few inches shorter than Jean was, thin as a rail, and with hands marked only by the callouses of penmanship—looked like he wouldn’t survive more than a day outside the guarded walls of a city.He couldn’t disguise the incredulous rise in his voice, but he did say, “Oh, what for?” He grinned. “Planning on joining the King’s Guard yourself?”(Medieval Fantasy AU: Armin wants to find his friends who went missing from Shiganshina some months ago. Jean wants to finish his knighthood training in the capital, where he stands the greatest chance of joining the King's Guard. He needs a navigator, and Armin needs an escort, so it's a good thing they're both going in the same direction.)
Relationships: Armin Arlert/Jean Kirstein
Comments: 16
Kudos: 62





	Everthere

**Author's Note:**

> would you believe this was originally written for jearmin week 2014 (!?!) for the 'fantasy' prompt? anyway, i never liked it back then, but on a revisit i found that it had good bones. now it's much transformed and three times as long. please enjoy.

Shiganshina was not a grand city, not by a long shot. In the few hours he’d been here, Jean had seen only a single cart pass through its gates, and with the setting sun already the merchants of the open market were packing away. There were children playing barefoot in the streets. When Jean passed them by, they paused in their game of chase to pat his horse’s muzzle and giggle at the chuff of her breath. He let them, and even offered up a handful of feed to give her in exchange for directions to Shiganshina’s library.

And thank god for that—he wouldn’t have recognised it as a library otherwise. It certainly didn’t look like one: a squat, stone building with the shutters half-closed, it looked abandoned. Jean expected the door to be locked, but it swung open readily under his touch. Its eerie creak echoed in the empty hall. 

Jean stood in the threshold. There was no librarian but instead, by the entrance, a checking out book in which to print one’s name, the borrowed book, and the date. Jean thought that put a lot of faith in the public, but perhaps the people of Shiganshina were less inclined to steal than those in the bigger districts. In Trost, the library’s stock would have been stolen and sold on within the week. He flicked through the pages absently, noting the lack of entries.

His search for a travel atlas or a map—one more recently composed than his own—had been fruitless thus far. The staleness of the air of Shiganshina’s library made him think it would continue to be fruitless, and not just because he couldn’t find any staff to direct him. It felt unlikely that any book written within the last ten years would be on these shelves.

It was his own pride that had got him into this mess in the first place: his insistence that he did not need a guide but only a map, a compass, and his own innate sense of direction. Now Jean didn’t know whether he could trust any of them. He only knew he was in Shiganshina by virtue of the guard at the gate who told him so, and even then he couldn’t find its name printed anywhere on his map. Even finding the library had been beyond his navigational capacity. 

Jean rounded another corner and started. The library had been deserted, strangely so considering the liveliness of the streets outside, but now there was someone stood before him. He had yet to notice Jean, too absorbed in his book. It lay open against the flat of his forearm; in his other hand, he held a wad of letters that he looked to from time to time. His hair fell in a long blond spill past his shoulders. Backlit by the sun coming in through the window, he looked like something straight out of scripture.

Jean must have stared a little too long and a little too hard. The man snapped the book shut so quick it was like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

“Can I help you?” he asked, though more gently than Jean expected, as if he really would have liked to help. He tucked the letters into his pocket, folding the book against his chest.

“Oh, sorry,” said Jean. “I was just looking for something. A travel atlas.”

The blond man nodded. “You don’t sound local,” he mused. “Rose? The south, maybe?”

Jean blinked. “Yeah. Trost, actually.”

The man offered him a half-smile.

“You left without a map?” he asked. It sounded almost wry, and he turned his face to the side as though to hide his amusement.

Jean felt his hackles raise. “ _No_ ,” he said, a little too loud in the uncanny silence. “I just need one that’s more up-to-date.”

“I don’t think you’ll have much luck here.” Jean had figured that much himself, but still it sunk his heart down into his stomach. The stranger continued, “I might be able to help you though.” He looked Jean over, then nudged past him to slot his book back into an empty space on the shelf. “Would you like a drink, first?”  
  
  
  
His name was Armin Arlert. Jean recognised it from the checking out book, one elaborate signature repeated down the columns. Now, in the sallow light of the tavern’s solitary gaslamp, he looked a lot more human. He must have been around Jean’s age, or less perhaps, though his youthful face was at odds with the cool scrutiny with which he regarded things. Jean figured him as some noble’s son—he had seen plenty of fiefdoms along Shiganshina’s rural outskirts, and not many careers would allow for hair like that.

“You’re a knight then,” Armin said.

Jean nodded, lifting the tankard to his mouth. The beer was cheap, watery, which might explain why Armin refused any offer Jean made to buy him one. (He drank instead from his own flask, though whenever the bartender approached, he would tuck it out of sight.) Jean felt slightly guilty: Armin had been the first person in Shiganshina to show him any hospitality besides the children playing in the street, and even they had been more interested in Jean’s horse than Jean himself. 

“Yeah,” said Jean. “I just finished my local training. That’s why I’m trying to get to Sina, to Mitras.”

Armin’s mouth thinned to an unhappy line. Distaste for the capital wasn’t uncommon in these parts, Jean knew, but the thunder that came over Armin’s face was startling. It was gone so fast that Jean could almost believe he imagined it, but for the sudden hard set of his jaw.

“To serve in the King’s Guard?” Armin asked. It would have been a casual question except that his voice was tight with a deliberate calm.

Jean nodded again. Warier, this time, because of the change in the light of Armin’s eyes. “That’s the plan.”

“I see,” Armin said. He lowered his gaze to the table’s pocked surface, and Jean felt himself relax at the break in eye contact. “An honourable career choice.”

His words did not quite match the face he was making, but Jean wouldn’t argue the point. He wasn’t planning on serving the King because it was _honourable_. Excellent pay, an opulent station in Sina’s central city, very little footwork… they held a lot more appeal than any sense of duty ever could. That had always been more Marco’s bag.

At his shrug, Armin went on, “So you’ll be passing through Karanes, then?”

“I guess so.” Jean disguised the nervous bob of his throat with another swallow of beer and hoped that Armin did not notice. 

Yes, the navigation was still something of a problem: his passage to Sina had not been going as well as planned. Some days of severe flooding had forced him to double back, setting him far off his initial course. The industrial boom of the past five years had boosted the economy _and_ the population, and new settlements were popping up all over the place. Most of them were still unrecorded, at least on his lousy map. Jean had had some difficulty trying to situate himself as a result.

“I don’t suppose you need help getting there?” Armin said. His gaze fixed on Jean again, watching for a reaction. His eyes were a stark cornflower blue. “I was actually planning on making the trip myself.”

 _Really?_ Jean wanted to say. The journey between regions wasn’t the safest, and Armin—a good few inches shorter than Jean was, thin as a rail, and with hands marked only by the callouses of penmanship—looked like he wouldn’t survive more than a day outside the guarded walls of a city.

He couldn’t disguise the incredulous rise in his voice, but he did say, “Oh, what for?” He grinned. “Planning on joining the King’s Guard yourself?”

Armin’s face darkened again, though this time he didn’t bother schooling it into something milder. “Hardly. I’m not a knight,” he said. _Well, obviously_ , thought Jean. He probably wouldn’t know which end of a sword was for stabbing. “No, it’s a personal matter.”

“What kind of personal matter would bring you all the way out to Karanes?”

Armin hesitated. “Friends,” he said. It was a dismissal more than an honest answer, but Jean could hear the unspoken warning to not probe any further. “I know how to get to Sina. If you’re willing to have a companion, I’ll navigate.”

Jean grimaced, and this time not because of the sour taste of the ale. Even though Armin was right—and Jean could not deny the rush of relief at the offer—the assumption stung his pride.

“How’d you figure I need the help?” he said.

“Well…” Armin began, gently so, as he pressed a finger to the surface of the table. “Imagine Trost is here. And this—” he circled a wide area some inches above, closer to Jean, “—this is Sina.” He drew his hand back towards himself and jabbed the table one last time. “Shiganshina is here. I’m sorry to say you’ve gone in the wrong direction.”

Colour rushed to Jean’s face. Those bloody floods, bloody stars, bloody good-for-nothing map. At least Armin sounded more sympathetic than amused.

“My map is out-of-date,” Jean mumbled. He rubbed at the little knot forming between his eyebrows. “I’ll think about it. You sure you know where to go?”

Armin smiled. He looked, for the first time, in his element. “I’m sure. At least, I don’t think I could make you any more lost than you already are.”  
  


* * *

  
Armin offered him a room and bed free-of-charge, another extension of his thanks for Jean’s guardianship. Staying in a stranger’s house seemed dangerous only in retrospect of agreeing to do so, though Armin didn’t strike him as the type to slit his throat for a coin pouch. That, and a bed was a bed. Jean had slept rough for the past three nights—in shit weather, to boot—so he was not inclined to be picky.

Armin’s home was certainly not that of a nobleman’s son. All it had in abundance was books. Jean had never seen so many in one place outside of a library; hell, it had Shiganshina’s own beat. They lay flayed open on his kitchen table and his desk. They occupied chairs and sat on the floor in precipitous stacks up to Jean’s knee. There must have been hundreds on the shelves alone. Armin had books in scripts Jean recognised but couldn’t read, and some he didn’t recognise at all.

“You can read all these?” Jean asked. He ran a finger along their leather-bound spines. Plenty were broken, the edges fraying, as though well and often picked through. These were definitely objects of affection.

Armin looked up distractedly. He was preparing for their journey, packing and unpacking, folding and re-folding. “The books? Most, though not all of them. Why have them if you can’t read them?”

Jean shrugged. “Some people like collecting.”

Though from the look of it, Armin wasn’t the type to collect much of anything. Besides the books, his house was lacking in all but the barest necessities, and even those were meagre. There wasn’t a quilt or cushion in sight to soften the hard backs of his chairs. It was only a small cottage, but with Armin sat in the middle of the near-empty room, his few belongings squirreled away into his pack, it seemed enormous.

Jean drifted from the shelf. He peered through the narrow hallway that bisected the house, straining to hear anything besides Armin.

“No one else lives here?” he asked. He almost expected someone to appear at the very question, though the cottage remained dutifully silent.

Armin just shook his head. “Only me,” he said, in the sort of tone that didn’t invite further conversation. 

The silence took on a chilly quality. Jean wondered whether he had said something he shouldn’t have, but he quelled the guilt before it could take root. How was he to know what was or wasn’t a sensitive subject to this stranger. 

“Well, must be nice.”

Armin’s head jerked up. He made a questioning noise in the back of his throat.

“You know, living alone,” Jean said, nervous now with that cool stare on him once more. He spread his arms as if to indicate the greatness of having this barren space all to one’s self. “Never have to worry about privacy.” He laughed a stilted laugh.

Armin ducked his head as though to hide his wry smile. Jean barely caught a glimpse of it. “I suppose so,” he said. Then, to Jean’s relief, he stood and gestured to the corridor. “The room you’ll be staying in is through here, nearest door on the left. I’ll be eating soon. Would you like some?”  
  
  
  
Breakfast the next morning was what was left of last night’s dinner—vegetable stew—and bread softened in Armin’s relic of a stove. It wasn’t the best meal Jean had ever had, and certainly not the best breakfast (just the thought summoned the smell of his mother’s omelettes), but it was hot and he was full. 

Armin finished his meal before Jean did and wandered into the front room. When Jean joined him, he found Armin brushing his hair. It fell long and loose over his shoulder. With quick and practised ease, he gathered it into a three-part braid and touched it gently, as though it were an animal’s tail. He looked up at Jean, standing still in the doorway.

“It’s inconvenient, isn’t it?” Armin asked.

“Sorry?”

“My hair.”

A knife sat at his elbow on the table. It was not for cooking; its hilt was elaborate, ornamental, though the way the flat of the blade flashed made clear just how sharp it was. Armin took it in hand. It seemed almost organic, liquid silver, as he slid it over the whetstone—ten times one side, ten times the other. Armin rested it against the back of his neck, the edge turned up and away from the skin. Then, in a single pull, he sliced the braid clean off. Something jumped in Jean’s stomach at the sight of it hanging loose against his open palm.

Jean swallowed. Too late, but still he said, “I suppose so.”

Without speaking, Armin stepped past Jean into the kitchen. He placed the knife in the sink, fumbled for the latch of the shutter, and threw it open. The wind stirred his hair, blunted now just beneath his ears. He let the braid drop out the open window as though it was no more than an old crust of bread. 

The scene left Jean vaguely disturbed. The flash of silver between the strands of yellow hair. Armin’s thin fingers curled about the handle. The braid, its complicated weave, and how it snaked in his hand as though alive. A sacrifice he had no right being privy to.  
  


* * *

  
Hundorf was their first stop. It was so backwater that it made Trost look like King’s country by comparison, and the ale was scarcely better than Shiganshina’s. (Armin continued to refuse Jean’s offer to buy him one.) There were three maps, a book, and a compass spread over their tiny uneven table. Jean had to cradle his glass in his hands. 

Armin requested a pen from the serving girl. On the older of the maps, a route was already marked out: a long black line that started in Shiganshina and ended in Stohess, from time to time straying from the main path.

“What’s that?” Jean said, pointing at the paper. He wasn’t especially interested, but the idea of sitting there in uneasy silence while Armin plotted away wasn’t all that interesting either. 

Armin hummed, barely sparing it a glance. “That was for some friends.” There was that dismissive note in his voice again. “A while ago.”

“The same friends that are in Karanes?”

Jean meant it only as a joke, but the muscles in Armin’s jaw gave a telling tick. The serving girl reappeared with an inkwell and pen; gratitude flashed briefly across Armin’s face as he thanked her. At least he was polite, Jean thought.

He dipped the pen into the ink. His hands were well-suited for the task, slender, precise, as he lowered the nib to the paper. “Yes, actually,” he said, “the very same.”

The table wobbled as Armin bent over it and he scowled, bracing his elbows on the surface. Jean glanced at the floor. The crooked leg was on his side, and so he wedged the toe of his boot in the gap. Armin noticed straight away. He gave Jean a curious but gracious look, nodding once before returning to his route planning, this time more comfortably. 

Jean craned his head over the old map once again. At every node of a village or town that the line crossed through, Armin had circled them in red. Except for two. There was something ominous about Karanes and Stohess, unmarked, like an unmet expectation.

Feeling emboldened by Armin’s earlier admission, Jean said, “What’s up with the circles, then?”

The motion of the pen faltered atop the second map—more recently composed, Armin had told him—and ink blotted the paper. Armin cursed softly, daubing the bleed with the edge of a finger.

“The circles?” Armin followed Jean’s gaze, confusion turning to understanding, and then shifting again. “… You’re rather nosy, aren’t you?”

Jean’s eyebrows shot up, though more at Armin’s tone of voice than at what he had said. Less an accusation than an observation, sharp but also a touch amused. Jean felt another swell of confidence. 

“I just figure, if we’re going to be spending a lot of time together, I might as well get to know you.” He lifted his glass, a one-sided cheers. “You got my back, I got yours. That’s how it works, right?”

Armin only laughed at him, a dry _ha_. He shook his head. “I don’t think I can offer you much in the way of protection.”

Looking at him—the slender bones of his wrist, a dollish button nose, his fair, unbroken skin—Jean couldn’t argue. He was pleased to get something out of Armin that wasn’t dry fact, however, and he jumped at the chance for levity.

“Protection? Psh. You keep doing your bit,” Jean said, and here he motioned to the tabletop, the spread of Armin’s papers, before gesturing to his own right foot still jammed beneath the table leg, “and I’ll do mine.”

The quiet amusement that lit Armin’s face was an unexpected triumph. Funny how such a small thing could lift one’s spirits. Jean was so pleased that he took a smug swig of his ale and nearly spat it out. He had forgotten to brace himself for its warm bitterness.  
  


* * *

  
It would take them three days to reach Ehrmich. Jean had thought it would take longer: the mapped roads spidered across a terrain that was awkward with steep rises and the yawning Muhren river. During their journey, however, Armin had noticed the number of traders was higher than one would expect on such a challenging route. Especially so since most of them were travelling with caravans laden with merchandise. Upon accosting one—they had to buy a canister of chicory to get the fellow to agree to stop—Armin learned a new bridge had been built across the river within the last two years. It would save them a lengthy detour to a narrower stretch. 

To say Jean was pleased was an understatement. Armin was likely a better navigator than any he could have found in Trost. Hell, knowing Trostians and his own luck, Jean would have hired some sleazy fraud who would have robbed him blind _and_ sent him in the wrong direction. Armin was certainly a better companion. He had yet to complain about roughing it, and he was a silent sleeper to boot.

He was, however, not particularly talkative. This would normally not bother Jean—in fact, if at the start of their journey you had told him that Armin mostly kept to himself, he would have been pleased. But reality never quite matched one’s expectations; it turned out that riding mute on horseback for hours at a time was, frankly, soul-destroying. 

“How long have you been in Shiganshina?” Jean finally asked. It was an easy question, one that invited further shallow conversation—Jean was not expecting a sparkling rapport with Armin, but a gentle volley would not be amiss.

Armin fumbled immediately. “What? Why? How do you mean?”

 _Jeez, relax_ , Jean thought, but it was not an especially charitable thing to think. Perhaps Armin had been lost in his own thoughts. He tried again.

“How long have you lived there?” Armin continued to stare at him in apparent bemusement. Jean tried a different tack. “Where’s your hometown, is it very far?” Nothing. “Do you ever visit your parents?”

“… I was born in Shiganshina.”

“Oh.” It was like Jean could see the ball dropping at his own feet, and now he was afraid to pick it up in case there was something horrible underneath. Armin’s sombre reply spoke volumes.

The memory of the cottage came back to him, though at the time Jean had hardly paid it any mind. The cold cobblestone floors with their threadbare carpets. The air, its stale stillness, and the empty shelves of Armin’s larder when he cooked dinner for them that night. The books themselves—so obviously loved, so well-read, and yet as Jean had slid his hands over them, his fingers had come away almost black with dust.

He felt guilty for raising the topic, but it was catching Armin’s expression that made his stomach lurch. His eyes had taken on a panicky look, as though Jean had unearthed something shameful. 

“I… I never spent that much time in the house,” Armin said, almost seeming to read Jean’s mind—as if Jean had imagined his cottage so vividly that it was projected into the air before them.

 _So you spent all your time in that deserted library instead?_ Jean thought but did not say. It wasn’t intended to be cruel. It would’ve been funny, rather, but for the sheer miserable face Armin was making. 

“I didn’t mean anything by it.” Jean tried to sound non-committal, casually disinterested. “You just seemed keen to get out of Shiganshina. You didn’t make any goodbyes when we headed out.”

It had taken Jean a week to leave his own hometown. Between his mother’s wheedling—there was always the promise of a hot dinner and a familiar bed—and his friends’ insistence on long goodbyes, which often involved far too many drinks, Jean’s departure had been delayed by several days. And yet, he had not been able to resist the urge to look back at Trost as he had left it. An ugly, grey, mercantile town full of conmen disguised as venders… but it was home, and Jean had had a happy life there. It had as many honest men as dishonest if you knew where to look. Even now, fondness for it stirred in his chest. 

Armin had not looked back at Shiganshina’s walls even once. And like the state of his cottage, it was something that would not have registered Jean’s notice but for Armin’s hunted, haunted reaction. 

Armin spoke, unprompted, after several overlong minutes.

“I had no one to say goodbye to.”

He said it quietly enough that Jean could imagine he hadn’t heard it. Surely that was the kinder, the more tactful thing to do. There was a whistling breeze, and his horse chuffed and lowered her head, catching his attention. Jean scratched her withers. 

( _Coward_ , his mind supplied, the word surfacing like unwanted flotsam.)  
  
  
  
The sun was setting as they arrived at Ehrmich’s gates. A lamplighter was going from post to post, face illuminated by the flame cupped in his open palm. A magic user. They were pretty scarce this far out from the centre. He blew the flame into the nearest lantern and they watched the street take on a soft orange glow. It felt a little more like home, here, like Trost. Taller buildings, paved roads and printed signposts, proper watchmen. And just like home, their place for the night wasn’t cheap. 

The room was compact, two narrow cots set against opposite walls. At least they had proper mattresses. It had been a long day, and Jean was too tired to do much of anything besides strip off his boots and collapse into bed. He listened to Armin prepare for sleep, and when he was finished Jean sat up to switch off the lamps. He yanked the sheets over himself. God, who knew a real pillow—not some sad thing full of straw and horsehair—could feel so comfortable?

The other cot creaked as Armin settled on to it. He cleared his throat. Jean did not hear the rustle of his bedsheets, but the delicious edge of sleep was creeping at his consciousness and he chose not to pay it any mind. That is, until Armin’s voice cut through the dark. 

“How long does it take to become a knight?”

Jean forced his eyes open a fraction of an inch. He was facing the wall, but he tried to imagine Armin’s expression. Blankly curious, perhaps, his hands folded before himself as though this was a matter of utmost seriousness. Jean was tempted to pretend he was asleep, but Armin was so reticent that any opportunity for conversation was worth taking. 

“Well, it varies. Generally you serve under someone as a squire for three years, unless you’re some kind of prodigy.” Jean grinned into the dark. “Still interested in the King’s Guard?”

“No,” Armin said, humourless as ever. This Jean could imagine: the little pinch between his eyebrows as the joke went over his head. Though the more he got to know him, Jean was beginning to suspect that Armin understood his humour and chose not to acknowledge it. That was a more painful possibility.

Armin went on, a little awkwardly. “I was just curious.” A pause. “Are there any… any restrictions?”

The question struck Jean as odd, but Armin did tend towards the odd. He frowned into his pillow. “What kind of restrictions do you mean?”

Armin’s mouth shut with an audible click. 

“Like… like personal things.” A deep breath. “Writing letters or, say, visiting people.”

“Not at all,” Jean said. “At least in my experience. You spend a lot of time training, or running errands, but I’ve never heard of anything like that. After the day is done, you’re free to do as you please.”

Armin made a quiet _oh_. “I see,” he said. He sounded very small and very lost, and this time Jean could not imagine his expression at all. It stuck with him long after they lapsed into sleepless silence.  
  
  
  
Breakfast cost extra, and Jean was loath to pay until he smelled brown bread—real brown bread, none of that brick-like stuff made from chaff and rye—and the sweet-bitterness of marmalade on hot toast. Armin watched, at once confused and amused, as Jean grudgingly handed over his coins.

They sat at a narrow table wedged in the corner, side by side. 

“You said it was robbery charging for breakfast after the cost of the room.”

Jean shot Armin a sideways glance. “It is. But this is quicker than finding somewhere else to eat, and _you_ said time was of the essence.”

It really was worth the money. Neat triangles of toast in a basket, a pot of marmalade and another of salted goat butter; a tangle of fried mushrooms, boiled eggs, and blood sausage the colour of rust, studded with fat. They ate in contented silence, though Jean could sense Armin’s urge to talk in the way his breathing caught, the compulsive picking-up-setting-down-picking-up of his knife and fork. 

When Armin finally did speak, it was cautious, halting, almost confessional. “You know I’m trying to get to Karanes,” he said, and waited for Jean to nod. “Some months ago, those friends I mentioned, they wanted to leave Shiganshina. To learn how to fight. Like you, I suppose.”

Jean chewed his toast and marmalade. Despite his apparent nonchalance, Armin’s eyes were wide and anxious. Jean nodded again.

“Right. Well, they knew there was no use staying in Shiganshina—I mean, it’s a farming village—so they decided to go to Stohess. And I _wanted_ to go with them, but it wasn’t really feasible at the time. In the end, they went off without me, which was… I didn’t mind at all. I told them to go.” Armin nearly tripped over his words, here, and stopped. He took a steadying breath. “Anyway. I marked out that route for them, and every time they reached a mailing post they’d send me a letter. Until they reached Karanes. Or, I should say, when they should have reached it,” and his voice lowered here, “if they made it there at all.”

Jean swallowed his mouthful. Last night’s questions slotted neatly into place. 

Armin prodded at his breakfast. He peeled the skin from his black pudding but did not eat it. “Each letter they sent, they would tell me where they were, and I would mark it down. Like a checklist. I had to know they were okay, and we promised we would stay in touch like that, even if I couldn’t reach them myself. But then days, weeks, months went by…” He dropped his gaze to the table. “I knew something must have happened.”

An uneasy silence fell between them. Jean had never been especially good at comfort, but even he could sense Armin’s brittle fear. It explained his secretive manner, somewhat—voicing such concerns seemed to give them much more power than if you kept them to yourself.

“I can’t say it’s the safest journey for two country bumpkins to make, but there’s not much point assuming the worst, is there?” Jean struggled to suggest some likelier possibility. “Could it be that they just, I don’t know, forgot? When you’re on the road—”

“They wouldn’t,” Armin said, instantly, sharply, but then his face softened. “It’s not like I didn’t consider that, but it wasn’t a gradual thing. The times between each letter always matched with how long it would take them to reach a new place. Sometimes that meant letters would arrive one day after the other, or sometimes even two at once. They always sent one anyway.” He traced a finger along the grain of the wood, following an imagined route. “It was just that, when they neared Karanes, the letters stopped abruptly. I don’t think that could be a matter of forgetting.”

Jean did not know what to say, though he knew what he didn’t want to say: that Armin had answered his own question with such tidy logic. 

“I’m sorry, but if it’s been months, don’t you think…” Jean started speaking without thinking, but then, was there a way to phrase this with any tact? It had never been Jean’s forte. He let his lapse into silence finish the thought for him.

Armin’s face crumpled alarmingly and for one horrible second Jean thought he was going to cry. But he recovered in an instant, ashen but neutral once more. “Don’t, don’t say that,” he said, “I wanted to go before now, but I couldn’t have made it all the way on my own. I’ve never been…” He gestured hopelessly down at himself. “I couldn’t afford a guard to the nearest estate, never mind all the way to Sina territory.”

Jean grinned an awkward grin, grateful for the easier topic. “Then you must have thought yourself pretty lucky when I came along. Your knight in shining armour, huh?”

Armin seemed to appreciate the light-hearted swerve. He swatted Jean’s arm. It surprised him—in a good way—the domesticity of it.

“Get that look off your face,” he said, “you were a desperate man’s last resort.”  
  


* * *

  
A week passed in relative peace. The weather stayed fine and dry, and they maintained a good pace. It was so peaceful that one morning, Armin said something like, “Perhaps I didn’t need a guard after all.” 

Jean had wondered whether that had been a joke, but Armin’s tone of voice had been the same as ever. Still, he was beginning to think the same himself. Considering some of the horror stories he’d heard, it was preternaturally calm. The worst they had come across was a wolf one evening, jaws clamped around a hare, corpse hanging limp from its mouth like a furred rope. The wolf had frozen, and they had frozen, a peculiar stand-off in the brittle light of dusk, its eyes two yellow moons in its face.

They had been lucky enough to have slept mostly indoors since Shiganshina. Along the outer edge of Rose territory, villages were small but frequent, and spare rooms the same. The few times they had had to make camp, the nights had been fair and clear. But Jean knew the inevitable was coming. Armin’s pen had marked a long line through nothing but empty countryside. The land here was less arable, less habitable—dry scrubland and dense forested areas—and already Jean had noticed the decrease in passing trade. Quicker to go as the crow flies, certainly, but it would mean sleeping out there too. No more hot breakfasts, either.

“How long do you think it’ll take before we reach civilisation again?” Jean groaned.

Armin resettled himself on the saddle. “We only left Ragako a few hours ago.”

Jean groaned again. “I know. But seeing how much ground we’ve got to make between there and Dauper…”

“I’d say four days, if we continue at this pace.” Armin grimaced and readjusted himself again. Last night he had almost been in tears coming down off his horse. Jean had laughed so hard at his bow-leggedness that eventually Armin too had cracked, and then cringed, as the effort of laughter triggered the pain anew.

(“You need a cold bath,” Jean had said, once he’d managed to control his amusement. He had stabled their horses and taken Armin by the elbow, leading him into their inn for the night. Jean had practically carried him up the stairs to the room. Once he’d managed to undress—a painstaking process that alone took half an hour—Jean had brought up two buckets of water at a time and dumped them into the tub. It had been halfway full when Armin finally deigned to lower himself into it.

“This is meant to _help_?” Armin had said, teeth gritted against the cold, skinny chest heaving as he breathed through his nose. He'd gripped the edge of the tub so hard his knuckles glowed.

Jean had dumped in another bucket of water, Armin yelping at the splashback. 

He'd said, in what he felt was a diplomatic way, “Well, are you thinking about your aching groin anymore?”

Despite his shivering, Armin had fallen deep into concentration. Then, looking up at Jean through his fringe, he'd nodded.

“True enough. I’ll never doubt your methods again,” Armin had said, echoing Jean’s diplomacy. “Now pass me that towel while I still have any feeling in my lower half at all.”)

It was gratifying to witness Armin’s strange softening, his uneven kindnesses, like a stone made smooth in some parts but rough in others. Jean was starting to understand his character a little more, or at least he thought so. Stranger still was how much Jean _wanted_ to understand him, and how it lifted his mood when something slipped through that carapace: Armin’s bent-double laugh, his cheeks blooming with colour, a wry joke offered up like something precious. 

Armin’s voice broke through Jean’s reminiscing. “We should stop for lunch. My groin is killing me.”

That should have undercut his fond thinking, shouldn’t it? But Jean could not stop grinning, not in a cruel way but in sympathetic amusement, and from knowing the significance of that bruising trust: Armin had no problem dunking himself naked in ice water if Jean suggested so.  
  


* * *

  
It was their third consecutive day on the road, and Jean really was growing sick of it. Of the outdoors, of bathing and sleeping and toileting under the open sky. He was hungry for something, anything other than dry rations and the stale taste of water boiled clean. Him and Armin were so gnat-bitten that they had started scratching each other where they couldn’t reach.

The worst was still before them. Jean had mitigated his own misery with that thought— _it’s not so bad, at least we’re not_ there _yet_ —but now they finally were, and he could no longer distract himself with petty whinging.

“Maybe we could go around it,” Jean said. He backed up, as though he would be able to see the tidy edges of the forest with a few extra feet of space. But it had loomed before them all morning, flat plains giving way to dense woodland, and now it cast its shadow over them.

Armin shook his head, though Jean had already known as much. Three days ago, Armin had pointed to the ominous dark shape of it on his map. Printed in elaborate script just below, the map had read: _the forest of giant trees_. 

“It would take several days to bypass it,” he had said. “Maybe even a week … but to go through,” and here he had drawn a sharp arrow through its centre, “a day, if that. Just one night in the woods and we’d be on our way to Dauper. And at least we’d be sheltered from the elements.”

The elements would have been kinder, Jean thought. There were threats on the open road all the time, of course, but the risk of ambush was much greater in woodland like this. Not to mention the wildlife—wolves, bears, poisonous snakes. Jean was not afraid of those things in isolation, but in the context of an enormous fucking forest that no man had attempted to map—a forest that featured in so many of the horror stories of Jean’s childhood _and_ adulthood—it would be weirder if he wasn’t afraid.

Even Armin, who had not been so obviously uneasy in their approach as Jean had, hesitated. He looked up into the canopy. It stretched unnaturally high above them. It was early spring; some of the trees had yet to come into leaf, and their spidery branches resembled hands reaching for the heavens. They almost seemed to touch the clouds.

Armin’s voice gave away his trepidation, but he busied himself by fiddling with his compass. “Alright. Shall we go?”

Perhaps it was having someone with him, but it was less frightening within the forest itself. The trees were so dense at times that their horses came within inches of each other, and it would have been a pleasant walk if not for Jean’s apprehension. Light passed through the tall canopy in slender shafts. You could tell from the slant of it that the sun was beginning to set. The light had taken on a hazy orange quality, as though a fire was blazing beyond the canvas of the trees. 

Spring nights always came in fast, and soon dusk was upon them. If Armin had been much further away, Jean would have struggled to make out his face. 

“We should stop to make camp,” Jean said. He swallowed hard, and from the bare flashes of sky overhead he could tell the night was a clouded one. Visibility would get very poor, very fast, and it wasn’t exactly great to begin with.

They dismounted and unpacked. The ground was mossy, spongy, giving up the scent of inherent damp. A chilly fog was rolling in, but the canopy kept the wind at bay. They lay out the waxed cotton sheet that was big enough for the both of them, and their bedding on top of that. 

The routine was, by now, comfortably established: Armin set their packs aside and started on a fire while Jean tended to the horses. The girls stood patiently, head to flank, scratching each other’s rumps with their teeth while Jean tied them up. He always insisted on feeding and watering them first. It was the respectful thing to do: their job was the hardest and the most important of them all, after all, and he loved doing it anyway. Jean pulled an oatcake from his pocket, broke it in two, and smiled as the horses jockeyed for his outstretched hands. 

At the fire, Armin had set a pot of chicory on to brew—its smoke-sweet scent filled the air—while he ate straight from a jar of pickled vegetables. The novelty of backcountry cooking had clearly faded. 

“Will you be able to sleep tonight?” Armin asked. If he had sensed Jean’s nerves before now, this was the first he’d commented on it. But then, looking at Armin now—properly, in the warm light given off by the flames—Jean could see his anxieties reflected there. Strangely, it seemed to dull some of his own fear.

“We’ll be fine,” he said, mostly believing it. The little part that wasn’t so sure was easy enough to ignore. “And anyway, most wildlife would be put off by the horses, or the smell of the fire.”

Armin lay back flat on his bedroll, and he released a wobbly sigh. As if trying to convince himself more than Jean, he said, “Tomorrow we’ll be in Dauper. It probably won’t even take us till lunchtime.”

“Exactly,” Jean said, though frankly tomorrow still seemed too far away for him to consider. The night stretched ahead like an endless ladder. “Goodnight, Armin.”

“Night, Jean.” Armin turned out from their camp to face the woods, as an animal watches the opening to its burrow. “And… if you can’t sleep, you can wake me up.”

But no sooner had Armin laid his head down than he drifted into sleep. Jean almost couldn’t believe the speed of it, Armin’s inhales softening, slowing, but then he slept like the dead every night. He said nothing of it, but the exhaustion of each day’s travel must have weighed heavily on him. An idle sleeper himself, Jean was sympathetic, but Armin was many magnitudes worse. On cooler mornings, he had to be roused at least four times before he would come to. 

Jean was tired, too, but it wasn’t so bone-deep; and he was restless besides with the clammy weight of the fog. Every sound shot straight through his consciousness. His nerves were indiscriminate. The noise of the trees, or a small mammal in the leaflitter, or his horse nickering to Armin’s: all of them thrust him back into wakefulness. 

An hour must have passed like this. It felt longer.

He watched Armin sleep with no small amount of jealousy. It was easy for him. After all, Armin was not expected to protect them from danger should it arise. It was an unkind thought, though, and Jean quashed it as soon as it came to him. Armin was doing his part without complaint, even when their planned paths failed. The reality was never as easy as a flat, unchanging map would make it seem, and Armin always found alternatives when roads were blocked and rivers had broken their banks; he would match his compass against the stars when the horizon was barren of landmarks. 

Jean orientated his attention on Armin, whose breathing was deep, steady. He made himself breathe in parallel, thinking of the rhythm of the ocean, a river’s current, of rain on a tin roof.  
  
  
  
But Jean was trained not to lie too deeply, not without the safety of four walls and a bolt lock. The rustle of someone at their packs broke through his dreamless sleep. He was up in an instant. 

It wasn’t Armin, his dark sleeping shape obvious in the dying glow of the fire. There were three of them, diminutive, likely not yet of age; in their hands they had some of Armin’s rolled papers, an empty water skin, a pouch of coins. The canister of chicory had spilled its contents in a dramatic arc. They startled when Jean shot up, and there was a moment of absolute stillness. Jean thought of the wolf, its acid gaze, the white fur of its throat streaked with hare’s blood. 

An explosion of movement: the scrolls tumbled to the ground. Jean felt out the handle of the knife at his belt, and the three took off, the crush of the undergrowth deafening in the silent forest. But Jean was lucky—one was slow, the one with the pouch. Jean lurched forward. By some miracle, his hand closed around a fistful of their shirt and he fought momentum, throwing himself backward and twisting, hard. The thief jerked like a smacked dog. Coins spilled to the ground in a glittering stream.

“Got you,” Jean said, and the muscles in his jaw ached with how tight he had gritted his teeth. The swell of anger came secondary to the adrenaline. “You little bastard, you—”

Jean stopped. He barely saw it, something silvery in the boy’s other hand. It was hard to parse the shape of it with the blood roaring in his ears, but Jean knew subconsciously what it was: Armin’s knife. The memory of it at the pale skin of his neck, hair shearing apart beneath its angled blade, surfaced through the chaos. Jean didn’t even get the chance to take a breath.

The knife swung out in a wide, blind arc. Jean knew from sparring drills the panic of it, a mindless stab in the dark, but it met its mark. Pain burst at his waist, a long burning line of it. He recoiled, gasping but not breathing. The thief bolted into the thick darkness of the crowding trees, but Jean was scarcely aware of him. The bones in his legs had gone to water. The damp of the forest floor seeped into the fabric of his trousers before he even realised he was on his knees. Shit. _Shit_. Jean’s trembling hands went to the wound, the hot mass of wet cotton, something alien on his stomach. Blood ran down his thighs. He couldn’t quite connect the two, but a ghostly terror was tugging at him, fighting through the fog...

“Jean? Is that you?” A quiet, tentative voice. “Oh. Oh, no.”  
  
  
  
Jean was only vaguely aware of being led back to camp. Armin bore most of his weight, hand resting some careful inches above the knife wound. Jean didn’t think he was making any noise, but Armin hushed him from time to time, lips so close they were nearly pressed to his ear. It was easier to focus on that. The anchoring warmth of Armin’s side against Jean’s own. His even breathing. The stable brace of his arm, as sure as a girder. Each step jarred hot liquid pain through Jean’s gut, but there, there still, Armin’s gentling voice stirred him back from the calling dark. 

After an age—surely he hadn’t run that long, that far—Armin lowered Jean to the ground. The waxed cotton creaked. Above them, the canvas of the leaves rolled, a tessellating wave. It was so dense that Jean couldn’t see the night sky, and the cold didn’t touch him: he felt overwarm and dizzy.

“You’ll be alright,” Armin said, in the quiet kind of way you’d soothe a cornered animal.

“I’m bleeding,” Jean told him dumbly. One of Armin’s hands was slicked black with his blood. When Jean tried to sit up—a pathetic jerk of his head—Armin placed the flat of his palm on his chest to set him down again. 

“I know,” Armin said. His voice, while tense, was utterly devoid of panic. The raw terror was fading, but Jean grasped for it, afraid of the siren call of sleep. “But you’ll be okay in just a minute."

Armin disappeared. There was a crack, and then the clearing lit up. He must have rekindled the dying fire. To Jean’s immense relief, Armin reappeared above. He must have been kneeling: his face was close, closer than it was before, and chalky pale. Jean could have wept at the sight of him. 

“Armin,” Jean said. The urgency was lost with his speech dying to a mere croak, but there was a hand on his, now, a thumb against the crease of his palm.

“I’m here. It’s okay,” Armin murmured, “it’s okay.”

He let out a hoarse whimper as Armin folded back his shirt. The exposure to the open air made the wound ache more keenly, though beyond the pain it just felt hot and wet and strange, a deep burning. Armin sat back, out of Jean’s sight. The absence shot him through with irrational panic, but Jean hadn’t the strength to sit up.

“This might feel a little odd,” Armin said, from some nebulous place beyond his periphery. Jean wanted to laugh, but all that came from him was a choked sob.

Armin was right, though, as he so often was. It felt odd. Like Armin’s bare hands were on him, pressing down, and it should have hurt. Instead the pain was leeching away; in its place there was only an even, thrumming heat. When Jean found the strength to look down at himself, he saw that Armin’s palms hovered some inches above the skin of his abdomen. 

He had recovered enough sense of mind to think, _healing magic?_

Jean knew of it, of course, but he had never seen it. There was no pulse of light as Jean had imagined—nothing visible at all, in fact. Though perhaps, if Jean were to look closely, he’d see the flesh knitting back together. It was a rare talent. A skill reserved for men and women of the cloth: people called it _god’s work_ , in that reverent, terrified tone reserved for the unknown. It was rare enough that most towns got by with regular physicians. 

He watched the steady movement of Armin’s hands above him, the panic and the pain ebbing away.

Jean said, before he could censor himself, “I thought only clergymen were allowed to learn white magic.”

Armin met his gaze. His eyes were lit by only the ruddy glow of the campfire, and the shadows it cast swallowed the blue of them. Jean began to wonder whether this was something he should have known, or figured out, but Armin had never mentioned it.

“I’m glad you’ve calmed down,” Armin said. His brow furrowed. “This takes some concentration, so be quiet, okay?”

Jean did not know much about the church, but he knew it was blasphemy to use white magic outside of it. Only god’s servants could do the work of god, such was the rationale. Maybe that was why Armin had never mentioned it.

“Did you not trust me?” Jean asked. Now and then, he was reminded of just how little he knew of this stranger. 

Armin did not answer. Perhaps that was answer enough. His hands dropped back to his sides, and in silence he wadded up the corner of his blanket to swipe the blood from Jean’s stomach. The pain was no longer eclipsed by Armin’s healing, but it had dulled to almost nothing. More unpleasant was the wet tack of his bloodied shirt as Armin folded it back down.

“Go to sleep,” Armin said, and his voice brooked no reply, “we’ll cover as much ground as we can tomorrow, if you’re able.”

Jean wanted to ask, quite suddenly, about Armin’s life. What he wasn’t telling him. What could have possibly happened. But the strange thready pull of warmth in his blood—Armin’s warmth, his mind supplied—had left him feeling pleasantly boneless.  
  


* * *

  
It was raining, just enough to sigh the warmth from the earth. The air was close and moss-ripe. When Jean sat up, he saw Armin sat in a crouch by the ash heap of the fire. The skin beneath his eyes was dark. He hadn’t slept. Jean was at a loss at what to say; all the thanks and apologies caught in his throat and dried up there. 

They packed up without speaking. Jean had noticed the pouch had been retrieved, and the money too by the weight of it. Armin must have searched it out in the early morning. It was one less thing to worry about, but it was cold comfort. Armin’s silence persisted, the atmosphere thick with it.

It was nevertheless a relief to be leaving the darkness of the forest behind. They had made better progress the day before than Jean had realised. Within a few hours the trees began to thin out, giving way to an overgrown path. Jean was grateful for the sight of the open sky, even if the rain fell heavier on them now. The raw smell of wet earth and storm static settled the odd rolling of his stomach.

“Wait,” Armin called out. His voice stirred the restless thing in Jean’s belly once again.

He heard Armin dismount and turned to look. He was scrambling in his pack, and after a moment he pulled out the map. With nimble fingers Armin unfolded the square of paper, shielding it from the rain with his cloak pulled over his arm.

“We’re ten miles from Dauper,” he said, “or, at least, we should be.”

His gaze lifted to meet Jean’s. His eyes were tired, but the sharpness hadn’t left them. It never seemed to. Armin bent to check the compass at his belt.

“What about flooding?” Jean asked, his voice rough with disuse. He cleared his throat.

Armin blinked up into the sky. Water dripped from his hair, down his nose. “We should be alright. It’s not that heavy anymore, and we shouldn’t be crossing any floodplains.”

Jean nodded. Something about Armin’s stare made him feel chagrined, young again, like a boy scolded by his teacher. Jean couldn’t help himself—he looked away.

There was the whisper of a sigh, and the tell-tale rustle of papers. Armin huffed at the effort of mounting the saddle, and they continued in the steady silent way they had before. It was driving Jean to distraction. His abdomen throbbed, only a little, a reminder.

 _Last night_ , Jean thought. _Last night, last night…_ He looked back at Armin’s hands, the reins wrapped tight about his knuckles. There was blood still crusted in and around the nails of his right hand. 

Armin must have noticed his staring, because he said, “How’s your stomach?”

The air caught in Jean’s throat. It was only a simple question, but Armin’s eyes were on him, huge, blue, guileless. 

“A lot better,” Jean said eventually. “As good as new.”

Armin increased his pace a little, so they were riding side-by-side. “Glad to hear it.”

Jean worried his lip between his teeth. It would have been a stupid way to go, slashed open by a juvenile thief and left to rot in a forest. And all for a handful of gold. The suddenness, the silence of it, had shocked him—how easy it was to die. He hadn’t even drawn his knife, in the end. It had seemed so simple in practice, jamming the wooden blade in against the throat of a fellow squire. Then again, everything had been simple in practice. The boy’s eyes, wide in his face; the skinny shape of his torso when Jean had his shirt pulled tight in his fist. He had frozen at the sight of such unbearable youth.

“Look, Armin, about yesterday,” Jean began, halting, “about last night, I… thank you.”

Armin glanced at him, then fixed his eyes forward. He arched an eyebrow. “You think I would have let you die?”

It wasn’t the response Jean expected. It wasn’t a fair one. Words failed him for a moment.

“Of course not,” he said finally, “but if you hadn’t known how to—if you hadn’t done what you did, I would have. I _would_ have died.”

There was no immediate reply. Birdsong filled the air. Armin’s head followed the lingering trill of it, out into the open field to the west. Little dark shapes flitted above and below the wheat crop, catching the insects that had been flushed out by the storm. The rain was softer now, a faint drizzle.

Armin cleared his throat. “It’s what any decent person would have done if they could. But you were lucky,” he added, sounding reproachful. “The wound was shallow. It could’ve been a lot worse. What you did—I mean, it was dangerous.”

Jean's hackles rose. “They were young, Armin. Teenagers. Kids, basically,” he said, anger unseating his guilt, “I couldn’t exactly run them through, could I.”

Armin stared at him. No, _glared_ at him, and for the first time Jean felt he was seeing Armin without his carefully constructed armour. A powerful current beneath the calm surface. 

“I’ve heard enough stories of the King’s Guard. There’s a serious problem with thieves in and around the capital. Adults and children both.” Armin’s lips thinned to a miserable line. His voice shook, but it was full of venom. “What do you think happens to those children when they’re caught?”

The question threw Jean. He remembered how Armin’s face darkened at the mention of Mitras, and again at Jean’s career choice. The King’s Guard, the most respected and most lucrative faction within the Military Police. Rumours of corruption were common enough, and Jean was not so naïve as to pretend he didn’t believe them. Gold in exchange for freedom, rampant nepotism, under-table dealings. Still, maiming—no, killing _children_? 

Jean wanted to say something scathing. Something like _what do you think happens, Armin?_ , because the idea was so entirely absurd. And yet, his breath caught in his throat again. Armin’s eyes were on him and Jean couldn’t find the words.

“I see,” Armin said. 

They stayed silent all the way to Dauper.  
  


* * *

  
Dauper had a handsome public house, white-washed walls and stained beams, and hanging baskets profuse with blooms. Its sign swung in the breeze, and below its name ( _The Burning Haybale_ ) there was an elaborate painted scene of a dragon razing a field. If him and Armin were speaking, Jean would not have been able to resist remarking on it—isn’t that a bad omen? But they weren’t, so he said nothing.

The man who served them was oblivious to the miserable tension. He had a spirited, easy manner, a shorn scalp and a wicked grin. From time to time, he distracted and was distracted by the pretty girl at the bar, tugging at her apron strings, her knotty ponytail. Because Jean still couldn’t bring himself to talk to Armin, he tried to listen in on their conversation. Their accents were so strong and their slang so impenetrable that it might as well have been another language. 

“Mountainfolk,” he said, under his breath. Armin glanced at him but said nothing.

“Here ya go!” The man cocked his head as he slid their plates on to the table. His accent abated some when he spoke to them. “Boar freshly slaughtered this morning,” he said. He jerked a thumb to the bar girl and mimed nocking an arrow. “Sasha’s a crack shot. Got ‘em right between the eyes!”

Armin mumbled a quiet thanks. In an instant, the man was back at the bar, cajoling, his flirting transparent but friendly. Something about them was so natural, so easy, that it made jealousy coil tight in Jean’s belly, though he didn’t know why. Homesickness, perhaps. Not that Jean had a girl waiting for him back in Trost. Besides his mother, anyway.

The meal was delicious. The meat was cooked just how Jean liked it, glossy with its own juices and trimmed with a layer of fatty crackling. All that they had eaten for breakfast that morning had been stale bread. And yet, it was so unappealing in that moment that it might as well have been spoiled. He watched Armin poke the meat around his plate, too, chin propped on his hand. Maybe he was thinking the same as Jean. Most of the time, Armin’s mind seemed like something that was and always would be well beyond his understanding.

Then again, did he need to understand him? Armin was an ace navigator. He hadn’t led them wrong once. He was good with his hands when doing fine and delicate work, intelligent but humble, perfectly able to translate contour lines and map symbols into physical reality. An ideal companion in many ways. Jean should have been satisfied with disinterested tolerance. 

“My grandfather was a cleric,” Armin said without prompting. Jean nearly dropped his knife. “And so was I, for a while.” 

“… For a while?” Jean echoed.

Armin shrugged his shoulders, pulled a face. As though for want of something to say, he forked some meat into his mouth and chewed.

“Conflict of faith, I suppose,” he said. “Does it matter?” he added, and this a little sharply, defensively, as though urging Jean to probe further just to rise to the argument. 

Frustration surged in Jean’s chest. This wasn’t fair, was it? To be treated with such disdain when he had done nothing to deserve it. Armin blew as hot and cold as a faulty furnace, one moment laughing at Jean and in another silently furious for no apparent reason.

He couldn’t contain himself any longer. “What is _with_ you?” Jean snapped, though with enough sense of mind to lower his voice. “You started this conversation—you finish it. Don’t act like I’m interrogating you.”

Armin stared at him with wide eyes, but they narrowed in an instant. “I’m not acting like that.”

“Don’t,” Jean said. “I didn’t ask you about last night. I figured there was a reason you wanted to keep secrets. You’ve been so damned cagey this whole time, and I thought, you know, whatever. I don’t need to know your life story to do my part. But I was serious when I said we’re meant to watch each other’s backs, and you’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t trust me even a little.”

That seemed to have an effect. Armin’s mouth twisted and he looked away, some of his fire gone. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he said, but whatever excuse was forthcoming seemed to die before he could say it out loud. The fire extinguished completely. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

Jean’s own anger deflated. It should have been satisfying to get an apology, but it felt like a hollow solution to his problem. He knew no more about Armin than Armin knew about him, though honestly it was more than most would find out in a scant two weeks travelling together.

“It’s fine,” Jean said wearily. He didn’t know how to explain what he was feeling; he didn’t know if he even understood it himself. He tossed a handful of coins on to the table and stood, the stool screeching against the stone floor. “Forget it—let’s go. I’m not hungry anyway.”  
  
  
  
Armin said something, but it was so quiet that Jean didn’t catch it.

“What was that?” 

Armin winced. He was pointedly not looking at Jean, staring down into his horse’s braided mane.

“I said, I do trust you.” 

Frowning, Jean couldn’t keep the scepticism out of his voice. He didn’t especially try to. “Sure. You could try not to look so pained when you say it.”

He heard Armin suck air through his teeth. It wasn’t hot, but Armin scrubbed his forehead like he was sweating. It made his fringe stand at funny angles. “It’s not anything you’ve done, I swear. And I mean it. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t trust you.” He spoke almost in a whisper. “I trusted you back in Shiganshina. It was clear that you were a good person even then.”

Jean did not reply, more because he couldn’t think of what to say than a deliberate choice. 

“It doesn’t excuse anything, but I… I don’t have very much. When my friends left for Sina,” Armin said, “my grandfather was very sick. That’s why I couldn’t go with them. He was dying, actually. Every day I would sit beside him. Every day, I tried to heal him. But it was like emptying a lake with a thimble—he wasn’t sick or injured. Just old, old and tired.”

He turned to look at Jean. Armin spoke so matter-of-factly that it should have been disturbing, but his eyes blazed with grief.

“At the time, I deluded myself that a man so devoted to his god would be saved. My grandfather gave his life to the church, nearly literally. He died mindless. He could barely even remember my name at the end.” His voice trembled, just barely. Jean would have not noticed if he were not listening so hard for it. “Tell me, Jean. What kind of god would allow that? What kind of god worth worshipping?

“When Eren and Mikasa—when my friends’ letters stopped, I just thought of how alone I was. How trapped. I couldn’t do anything, but then I never could, not without them, without my grandpa, without any faith. And I let that nothingness eat at me until I didn’t know how to be anything but cold.”

Jean waited, but it seemed like Armin had said all that he wanted to say. The chill was such that, when Jean let his horse drift closer to Armin’s, he could feel the animal heat rising between them.

“Thank you,” he said. Armin gave him an uncertain look but one that betrayed a tentative hope. “Thank you for telling me. I trust you too. And, for what it’s worth, I trusted you before you saved my life last night.”

Jean had trusted him in Shiganshina, too, and not just because Armin was the first person to notice he needed the help. He trusted Armin because it was obvious—even when he was cold—how that sadness anchored him. How Armin fought against it even though the grief was woven into the fabric of his being. Even when Jean knew nothing about him but his name and the sweet solemn shape of his face.

The thoughts came to him unbidden, a steady flow of them. A knotted mass unloosened with the teasing of a single thread. It was true, Jean realised, and it was that that made his hands clammy and his blood run cold. It was too much to feel for someone he had known scarcely a fortnight. 

But it was true.  
  


* * *

  
Rain came down in sheets. It would have made no difference if they spent a minute or an hour in it: they were soaked to the skin in an instant, wind lashing the rain into Jean’s eyes.

“We need to find shelter!” Jean said, half-shouting over the noise of the deluge.

Armin brought his pack in front of himself in the saddle, bending awkwardly to protect it. Their maps were in there. Without looking up, he shook his head.

“We’re still hours from Utgard,” and so speaking, Armin looked around as if he could summon the village by doing so. Jean twisted in his saddle, but visibility was terrible; he could hardly make out Armin’s face some feet from him.

They continued at a trot, and eventually an old watchtower emerged out of the grey. They didn’t see it until they were almost upon it, a skinny-legged thing with a crooked roof—a remnant of an old stronghold, Jean supposed. They tied their horses to the girders below and scrambled up the short ladder to the platform. Rain streamed in through the open sides, but at least there was a roof above them. Jean sat in the middle of the floor where it was driest, and Armin sat behind him, back to back, bent in such a way that Jean could feel the knobs of his spine through his sodden cloak. The wind and rain roared, as though furious at their paltry shelter. 

Armin spoke over the noise of the downpour. “There used to be a castle around here, apparently,” he said. Jean could feel the vibrations of his voice through his body, as close as they were. “This was probably part of it. But they tore down a lot of those old fortresses to re-use the stone. With the unification of Paradis, there wasn’t a need for them anymore.”

Jean laughed, a breathless sort of sound—the shock of the storm had stolen the air from him. “How on earth do you know so much?”

He felt Armin shrug. “I read a lot of books.”

That, Jean could believe. Armin seemed to know at least one thing about everything. He could tell birds by their song, animals by their tracks. He could identify plants and mushrooms, though he was never so confident as to let Jean eat one that he said wasn’t poisonous. He knew the name of that little groove below a person’s nose—philtrum, apparently—and the part of his lap that hurt the most from the saddle. When Jean had said, “Oh, behind your balls?”, Armin had scowled and corrected him with what must have been performative decorum, “Yes. The perineum.”

He also seemed to know things that he should not have known. Jean could not forget what he had said about the King’s Guard, not just the corruption but the cruelty of the capital. _Fish rot from the head down._

“Do you remember what you said, back in Dauper? About the King’s Guard.” It had only been a few days, but it felt like a lifetime ago. “Do you really think that’s true?”

If Armin was surprised by the question, it didn’t show. “You hear a lot of things in the outermost districts. Places like Shiganshina—they were treated like penal settlements, and exiles from the centre didn’t exactly have kind words to say. Not that you’d expect them to, but…” Jean sensed him turn; Armin was giving him a sorry look. “There was no small number of children among Sina’s deported. Traumatised children, with no guardians, no money, no means. They were always coming into the church, sometimes for food or shelter, sometimes to steal. Sometimes just to talk.” Armin’s eyes took on far-away look, as though to remember their voices was painful even now. “Not all of them got deported, though.”

Jean felt sick to his stomach. For one hot, horrible second, he really did think he was going to vomit, his insides turning like a greased wheel, until the sensation of pressure pulled him out of himself. Armin was leaning against Jean more deliberately now. His hand closed around Jean’s forearm, as if he had felt him shaking. 

Affection, inexplicable in its intensity, filled Jean to the brim. Armin had returned to staring out past the parapet, but still he held his arm—gently, bracing, a mute support that allowed Jean the dignity of not responding.  
  
  
  
The sky broke open as it always did after a hard storm, the air so sere and fresh you were hardly aware of breathing. Naked sun blazed down upon them. The grasslands were flooded with shallow water, and from above it gave the illusion of a mirror’s endless surface. 

“At least that killed the humidity,” Armin said. He had removed his boots and was wringing out his socks, for what little good it did: Armin grimaced as he peeled them back on. The site of his white feet, stark beneath his dark trousers and against the rot-black wood of the platform, made him seem especially small. Doubly so with his clothes clinging to him.

They were more tentative climbing down the ladder than they had been going up. The final few rungs were missing, and they landed with a dramatic splash. The ground made a swampy, sucking noise as Jean headed for the horses. He could feel Armin watching him as he ran his hands over their backs, water stripping off them.

“Sorry guys,” he murmured, and his mare pressed her muzzle into his open hand, lips tickling his palm.

Rather than continue on horseback, they decided to walk. Getting caught in a rainstorm always made Jean feel the same way—rinsed, raw, purged of something that a regular bath couldn’t touch.

He could still feel the ghostly grip of Armin’s fingers on his wrist. 

“Should I still go on to Mitras?” Jean said, surprising even himself with his uncertainty. He was afraid to check Armin’s expression, imagining a flash of disappointment, or rage, or even pity. Armin would hide it quickly enough, though maybe that was worse.

There were none of those emotions in Armin’s voice.

“Do you think you could change anything?” he asked. It was the kind of question that should have been said in disbelief, but Armin was only sincere—as if all that could keep Jean from making that change really was his own self.

“I don’t know,” Jean said, and it was true. “But I think that I need to go… I must at least see what it’s like. I couldn’t go back home if I didn’t.” He added quickly, “Not that I don’t believe you, I do—”

Armin did not appear to need the reassurance. He nodded once. “You need to witness it for yourself. I understand.”

Jean released a drawn-out breath. With it, he felt some unrealised tension loosen from his bones. “A friend of mine, Marco, he went on to the capital a month ago or so with a few other squires. I want to know what it’s been like for him, what he’s seen.” Jean scrubbed at his face. “I don’t know what it’s like elsewhere—obviously not in Shiganshina, but in Trost, in Rose south generally—the Military Police is what every child aspires towards, you know?”

Suddenly, Armin stopped. The water underfoot sloshed as he turned to face Jean fully, as if he had to convey something very important. He put his hand on Jean’s shoulder, and this time the touch shocked him like a brand. 

“I wouldn’t expect you— _want_ you to make any decision without that knowledge.” His expression was so serious that in any other context Jean would have teased him, but instead he just felt gutted, Armin opening him up with a precision strike, his torn stomach splitting again. “I know you’ll do the right thing, whatever that might be.”  
  


* * *

  
“An omelette?” Armin said, incredulous. 

Jean didn’t think it worthy of incredulity. The question had been unexpected (“What’s your favourite dish?”—Armin must’ve been hungry), but Jean had answered it with ease.

“Yeah. What’s wrong with that?” he said absentmindedly. His attention was elsewhere. Armin had torn the top buttons of his cloak some days ago, and Jean had only just noticed him unfastening the pin he was using to keep the ends of his collar together. 

(“You’ve lost _all_ three buttons?” Jean had said, and Armin had blinked at him as if he couldn’t see the problem. Jean had snatched it to his chest before Armin could fold it away, insisting on staying up and fixing the damn thing by the light of the fire. Because, yes, he _did_ carry a sewing kit with spare buttons, thank you, because he was well-prepared and sewing was as much a man’s art as it was a woman’s one. His mother had always told him _clothes maketh the man_. And anyway, what kind of squire couldn’t fix his own apparel?) 

“I don’t know, I was just expecting something grander.” Armin thought for a moment. He was fiddling with his fingers; watching Jean work when he had nothing to do made him fidgety. “You know, roast chicken with potatoes. A really good pie, or beef stew, maybe. I mean, an omelette? Really?”

“You’d understand if you had one. Of my mom’s omelettes, that is.”

Two days later, Jean woke to a familiar smell. Pale eggshells littered the grass, and Armin was crouched by the fire. He was smiling, near apologetic.

“It might not be as good as your mom’s,” he warned.

Jean gaped at him. “Where did you get the eggs?”

“I bought them from that farmhouse we passed earlier, while you were feeding the horses.” Armin blushed, a pleased glow. “Gosh, I had to wrap them up so carefully…” 

The edges of the omelette had caught. They had no seasoning, and it had torn dramatically where it had stuck to the pan. But it tasted like home, and Jean found himself swallowing back more than just his mouthful, blinking hard as Armin pulled on his cloak and focused on closing the buttons.  
  
  
  
If there was one thing that didn’t make sense about Armin, it was that he could be so careful, so thoughtful, in some matters, and yet so careless and thoughtless in others. Jean was mostly accustomed to it by now—he wasn’t exactly a paragon of civility himself—but the sight of Armin pulling at his cloak with so little regard made him gasp in horror.

“What are you doing!” 

Jean was in Armin’s space before he knew it, any sense of casual restraint gone out the window. 

Armin frowned, exhaustion warring with confusion. “What am I doing?”

Jean could have torn out his own hair. “Your cloak! You were—” he held his hands up in front of him, as if that could demonstrate the brutality he’d just witnessed, “—you were about to tear it off!”

To Armin’s credit, he had enough sense of mind to look guilty. “Oh, right. I’m sorry, I just…” He trailed off as Jean began to undo the buttons for him, only half-listening. “I forgot…”

There were only three buttons; Jean had them undone in seconds, and he stood there holding Armin’s lapels for a moment. “I know. I know you’re dead on your feet and want to make camp. And it’s only a small thing, but it’s barely been two days since I fixed it and I don’t have any more buttons, you know—"

When Armin kissed him, it was so brief that Jean probably would have missed it but for how it interrupted him mid-flow. A dry touch to the corner of his mouth, like the pad of a finger. They were close, very close, but somehow he hadn’t noticed till now. He could feel Armin’s breathing, the air huffing against his neck but also the rapid rise of his chest where Jean was still holding his cloak.

Jean’s mouth hung open a moment. He touched the place where Armin’s lips had been, watching in dumb silence as Armin’s expression faltered. The rush of panicky doubt to his face had Jean scrambling for something to say, _anything_.

His mouth worked on air. He said, “You must have made a terrible cleric.”

Armin’s frown smoothed away into surprise. A beat passed. And then he laughed, and he cupped Jean’s blushing face in his cold, uncalloused hands.

“You’re right,” Armin said, “I did.”

The second kiss was deeper. Better. Armin threw his arms around Jean’s shoulders and pulled him down to his level with surprising strength. The motion made his cloak slip to the ground. 

Jean knew there was something precious here, raw and open, Armin’s beating heart pressed into his hands as no more than the breath between them. Really, Jean didn’t know what he was doing. Only that he had to be careful. He might not have been so light of touch as Armin, but Jean had handled fine things before. This could be within his means. 

The night was warm and clear. Jean had lost all desire to unfold his bedding, and Armin was leaning so heavily on him, too tired to stand alone. They lay together on the dry grass and slept, Armin’s head pillowed on Jean’s chest, Jean on Armin’s fallen cloak.  
  


* * *

  
Eisenberg smelled of money. Every person that walked by seemed to leave a powdery scent trail—the air was nearly thick with citrus, cedar, rose, lavender. The fleshy, almost faecal smell of horse was non-existent; it was so ubiquitous in every other town that its absence here was unsettling. Sina territory might as well have been a whole other world. 

The fresh market heaved with a well-heeled crowd. That was at least familiar, but again uncanny differences came to Jean’s notice. The gutters weren’t littered with fallen fruit and vegetables as they would be at Trost, and there was no slick of blood running downstream from the butcher’s stall. Instead brightly coloured papers floated free from people’s hands as they ate bags of sweetmeats and salted snacks from the venders that lined the pavement. The heady scent of cobnuts, roasted and tossed in hot sugar, was almost nauseating. It was a cool spring day, but heat rippled from the crowd.

Jean saw Armin grimace. It had been three days since they had last had a proper bath. River water could only do so much: Jean could still feel the stubborn silt between his toes that had resisted all attempts to be rinsed away. When Eisenberg’s population deigned to glance at them, Jean could feel the imaginary daggers shot their way.

“Let’s find a place to stay,” Jean said. If he felt out of sorts, god only knew how Armin felt. “We shouldn’t be lacking in choice, at least.”

Armin glanced unhappily at the throng. “Yes, you’re right.” He shook his head, muttering so Jean could barely hear him over the noise. “What a way to live…”

It took five attempts before they found an inn within their modest means. Their money was beginning to run out. It wasn’t an unexpected surprise—every other night they counted their coins and planned appropriately—but still it made Jean’s stomach roll unpleasantly. Mitras was no longer a distant hypothetical _when_ , and Karanes was closer still. 

Jean tried to ignore these thoughts. He slid enough gold for one night’s stay across the counter, mourning the loss of so much in a single spend. One less night with Armin. The owner grimaced and flicked the coins into his palm, as if it pained him even to touch Jean’s dirty money.

“Your room is on the first floor, number one-three.” He took a key off a hook behind him and passed it to Jean. Then, he gave them a long, deliberate once-over. “There are washing facilities at the end of the corridor, should you wish to use them.”

They climbed the stairs two at a time. Jean nudged Armin in the ribs. “Jeez, you’d think we had flies coming off us,” he said, not quite quietly enough. Armin shushed him. “Seriously though.”

“I know,” Armin said, contrite, but he continued in a more reasonable tone of voice, “I do wish to use the _washing facilities_ , though.”  
  
  
  
Armin bathed first while Jean unpacked their few necessities in the room. It was hardly good value considering the price it cost, but it would do for the night. At least the beds were some inches wider than the usual cots they got stuck with, Jean thought. The passing notion became a fixation. Yes, bigger beds… that was convenient. Big enough for, well, for two people, one might say. A bit cramped but perfectly serviceable.

He was still sat on the slightly-larger-than-average-bed thinking these things when the door swung open. Armin emerged, his clean damp face alight with simple pleasure. Jean could almost see the steam rising off him, he looked that fresh. A proper bath could do miracles for a dirty and aching soul. 

Armin spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “They have running water, you know. I’ve never seen that before.”

Jean’s eyebrows lifted. He had only ever seen it once: his master back in Trost was a retired captain from the capital. On transplanting his family to the far south of Rose territory, his wife had apparently insisted on some kind of plumbing if she were to live there. Trost didn’t have the foundations for it, but after some months they had set up a rudimentary system that nevertheless required quite a bit of manual pumping to function. Still, it was better than carrying buckets.

“This I have to see,” Jean said, with a little wry sarcasm but not much. “I guess that would explain the extortionate prices.”

Armin smiled. God, he smelled good even from here. “Enjoy.” He gave Jean a little wave. “Let me know how you like it.”

If Jean didn’t know any better, he would have thought Armin was _flirting_ , and if that were the case, he wouldn’t have had any idea how to respond. But he did know better, and so Jean tousled Armin’s wet hair as he passed and fought the inexplicable heat rising to his face.  
  


* * *

  
It turned out that one bed was, indeed, big enough for two people. The sight of Armin above him—his tender expression, that unreadable gaze—thrust Jean back to the night he had healed his slashed stomach. 

This time, Armin’s hands really were on him. His fingers fanned out beneath Jean’s shirt, sliding up the hard muscle of his abdomen; his thumb circled the little pale knot of flesh to the right of his navel, all that was left of the wound now. Armin breathed out a reverent breath. Watching him, Jean wondered if this was how he touched his books of god, cupped the white candle or the match to keep the flame alive. This holy creature, treating Jean so gently, made the air go tight in his throat. 

“Armin,” he said, breathlessly, hopelessly. He grabbed for Armin's wrist, feeling out the mad hammering of his pulse between the tendons. Jean thought of Armin’s house, so quiet and empty; he thought of Armin, without family and without friends, in that quiet house. His insides ached. 

He hauled Armin down against him. He smelled of incense, sweat and soap, and his hair tickled where he tucked his head into the crook of Jean’s neck.

“I’m sorry,” Armin said, barely audible with how he was pressed against him.

Jean wasn’t sure why he was sorry. He lowered his hand to the small of Armin’s back, slipping it under his shirt and then up, to expose his skin to the ambient air of the room. “Don’t be. There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

Armin’s ribs shuddered against Jean’s own. He grabbed a fistful of the front of Armin’s shirt with his free hand, pulling only hard enough for Armin to get the hint and shift to meet him. He was close—the piercing blue of his eyes made Jean’s gut twist—and then they were kissing properly, Armin’s lips parting, letting him in, his body alive and thrumming with what Jean recognised under his own skin.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Jean burst out. He regretted it in an instant, blood rushing hotly to his face.

Armin only blinked at him. “You’ve never,” a careful pause, “done this before?”

Jean’s face might well have been on fire. “With, with women, yes,” he said, “but with a man, I…”

Armin huffed out a quiet laugh. When Jean summoned up the courage to look him in the eye, he saw only fondness there. 

“Don’t worry,” said Armin. His voice was as calm as ever. “I have.”  
  
  
  
Armin looked like something from another world. Moonlight pooled on their bed; Armin kneeled above him, pale body coloured blue. Jean thought back to Shiganshina’s library, a stranger illuminated from behind, striking, lovely, curious. He was straddling Jean’s hips, sunk on to his cock, smiling. It was a smile that Jean had never seen before. Sweet, fragile, full of longing. Raw affection.

Armin tucked a lock of hair back behind his ear and whispered, almost shy, “Okay?”

Nothing existed beyond this room. They were outside of time, outside reality: nothing mattered besides this moment, Armin in the sodium light of the lantern just outside their window. His eyes met Jean’s. He rocked his hips, mouth slack and gasping a little like he was hurt. A good hurt.

“Fuck,” Jean said, because it was all he could think to say. “Better than okay. Way better.”

Armin laughed, and _fuck_ , again, because Jean could feel that too. The half-light caught all the lovely angles of Armin’s face. His palms slid up Jean’s stomach, resting on his chest as he lowered himself forward. Surely he could feel Jean’s heart beneath the cage of his ribs. It was beating so fast it would give rabbits a run for their money.

Armin looked down into Jean’s face, a strange, searching look that he couldn’t interpret. He must have found it—whatever he needed from Jean, broken open under Armin’s touch—because Armin kissed his throat, his jaw, his mouth. Jean grabbed a fistful of Armin’s corn silk hair. It was damp still from his bath, and Armin’s hand came to cradle the tender spot at the base of Jean’s skull, his nails scraping against the shorn velvet there.

They broke apart, breathing hard. The sacredness of the space between them, pared down to nothing. Flesh, muscle, blood, bone. Armin’s cheek slid against Jean’s own, and he was grinning, grinning like a boy with a secret.  
  
  
  
Jean woke up feeling better rested than he had in a long time. The room was soft in the thin yellow light of the morning sun. Against the opposite wall, he saw the other bed, as made up as it had been when they arrived the night before. Armin slept on beside him. They would have to leave soon, because the innkeeper had made himself very clear about late fees. But Armin looked so comfortable.

 _I’m in love with you. I know that’s nonsense—I know that better than you, trust me. You make me happy, sure,_ more _than happy, but thinking about you fills me with sweating terror too and I guess that’s the real telling thing: I’m afraid. I’m afraid of my bed roll without you in it, or next to it. I’ve never known such panic as when I wake and you’re not there, and barely emerging from the veil of sleep I imagine something horrible has happened until I hear you building the fire or changing your clothes._

_Anyway. I’m pretty sure I’m screwed. And—sorry—I hope you’re just as screwed as I am._

Jean closed his eyes, turning back into the open cradle of Armin’s sleeping body. The whisper of his breathing tickled Jean’s cheek. A few more minutes couldn’t hurt.  
  


* * *

  
“I suppose this is where we part ways,” Armin said.

The gate leading to the district of Karanes was large, imposing, and in the middle of the day a steady stream of carts passed in and out. Watching them was almost hypnotic. Jean wondered how long he could stay here, staring, with Armin at his side. By the frustrated scuff of his horse’s hoof, not much longer. 

“Well,” Jean said. He took a deep breath. “I guess it is.”

Armin spurred his horse on a little way, then stopped. He turned to look back at Jean, something that wasn’t quite a smile on his face. 

“You were an excellent escort,” Armin said, his voice gentle and low, “and a better companion. I wish you the best of luck.”

They had already said their goodbyes proper. Last night, in their room in the only inn in the tiny village of Hoch—more a military outpost than a real village—Armin had kissed him until his lips were swollen and set his jaw against the coming tears. Last night, when his eyes were wild and bright with fear, and Armin had said, “What if I find them, and you were right, that they just forgot me.” He took a great rattling breath. “I wouldn’t know what to do. Where to go.”

“They would be idiots,” Jean had said, and squeezed Armin’s hand within his own. “I would find you.”

“They’re not idiots,” said Armin, and it hadn’t been a scold as much as it was a miserable sigh. “They’re all I have left. Them, and now… and you, now.”

Jean hadn’t known what to say. To be allowed into this life he barely knew and yet was so thoroughly entrenched. It was an honour. A landscape he hardly knew how to navigate—but at least he had a guide. Jean had lifted Armin’s hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to his knuckles, and then another into the sensitive curve of his palm. He had nothing else to give.

Now, with the glaring sun and the city guard so nearby, it all seemed so distant. Armin, whose breathing and body he’d shared, so close and yet worlds away. 

“Yes,” Jean said. He swallowed hard, grasping for anything to prolong this moment. “And you were a great navigator. I wouldn’t have made it this far if not for you.”

The praise sounded unnatural coming from his mouth. Armin just smiled wanly at him. “Mitras is northeast of here. A four-hour journey on horseback, less if you push. You’ll easily get there before nightfall.” There was a tease in his tone, though all it provoked was a wretched tightness in Jean’s belly. After a long moment, Armin turned his gaze away. “Goodbye, Jean.”

Jean watched him go up to the gate. He was met by an officer, the badge of a unicorn blazing on his right breast, on his cap, and Armin handed over his travel papers. They must have been satisfactory. Within moments Armin was being waved through into the slice of the city Jean could make out between the gates.

“Goodbye,” he said.  
  


* * *

  
Karanes could not have been more different from Shiganshina. Certainly more affluent—the architecture, the style of dress, even how people wore their hair: the men’s set and shining with pomade, the elaborate braids and handsome hats. Watching people come and go, Armin wondered whether Eren and Mikasa had thought the same. If they had made it this far at all. The thought of their bodies laid between this city and the last made Armin’s stomach turn over. Him and Jean could have passed them by, none the wiser. He thought back to that night in the forest, Jean’s shirt dark with sweat and blood, the coppery clinging smell of it. The fear had nearly taken the ground out from beneath him. 

And yet, Armin thought with sudden surety, there was no way. To imagine otherwise would be to do them a disservice. He felt the familiar pull of anger at himself—there was no point imagining the worst.

He stabled his horse outside the first inn he found. The sign creaked in the wind. It bore a portrait of a king’s noble profile, and below in cursive it read _The King’s Arms_. Armin scoffed. He really was in royal country now. 

He touched his hand to his breast pocket, feeling out the bare slip of paper torn from Jean’s old map tucked between his chest and the fabric of his cloak. In the small hours of the morning, Jean had written out the address of Mitras’ garrison on the back, folding it into a square and pushing it into Armin’s hand. It wasn’t necessary to say out loud what it meant: come find me. A silent promise felt easier to keep.

Buoyed by the memory of Jean’s kindness, Armin walked on down the street. He would find them, Eren and Mikasa. And once they were together again, he would tell them all that had happened since their last letter, and perhaps after a time, they would make their way on to Mitras, and they would meet up with the knight that Armin had told them about, the one that made his heart sit in his mouth. He probably wouldn’t mention that, though, at least not until they were a few drinks deep.

The problem was of where to begin. It had been a gradual thing, but as they had passed through Maria, Rose, and finally into Sina, villages had grown into towns, and then districts. They weren’t necessarily all that much larger, but they were far denser (and, in Armin’s experience, the people much less friendly).

Maybe this was how Jean had felt as he wandered Shiganshina, all those weeks ago. Armin had thought him arrogant then, but also charming, or rather someone who could be charming if the situation called for it. His chest ached to remember the look of Jean’s face in the library. A little lost but proud all the same, and very earnest even as he played the cynic. The absurd urge to cry rose like a bubble in Armin’s throat.

 _Don’t cry_ , he told himself. _Don’t you dare cry._

He didn’t cry. Instead, Armin yelped. There was a hand on his shoulder, and a voice just to the right of his ear. The timbre, the weight of the touch, both familiar, Armin’s heart leaping into his mouth—

“Hey,” Jean said, “I think I got lost again.”

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from elbow's song ['the everthere'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LUzoYZfDDA), and these particularly inspiring [lyrics](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/elbow/theeverthere.html):  
> 
> 
> All my saints have taken bribes  
> Singing, "Going, going, gone."  
> All the angels taken dives  
> Leaving you the only one  
> ...  
> If I lose the sequence here and there  
> Less derring-do than quiet care  
> Can I rely on you for a good talking to  
> To be for me the everthere?
> 
>   
> thanks for making it this far! world-building is not my forte, and thus most of the place names are stolen from canon and don't necessarily map to the in-universe geography.


End file.
